We tried to take a picture, but he was taking his role as The Flash very seriously.

Hand, foot, and mouth disease had ruined my hands (and feet) for the time being. Currently been 2 weeks since my first symptoms arose. Hope NONE of you ever have to deal with this to the extent I had it, because its been a nightmare!!

Ten years ago, I started my sobriety journey because I was facing some legal issues. I was stupid, high on Xanax and keyboard cleaner. I had graduated high school just a year prior, and I found myself in the federal justice system.
I found a regeneration program up in the mountains of Georgia, where I spent 26 months total: 13 months receiving support and another 13 months choosing to stay on as a mentor to the newcomers. The 20/21-year-old version of me had no idea what he had in store for him in the future.
I found myself in private prison during the summer of love in 2020. On May 5, 2020, I made my second attempt at sobriety, and I’ve been sober for six years now.
Looking back at rehab, my time incarcerated, and the friends I’ve lost to addiction, I know I don’t want to go back.
I watched my father die, and instead of drinking the pain away, I called a friend, and he helped me. I’m still sober.
I’m thankful for my sobriety now more than ever because my younger cousins lost their dad to addiction. I stepped up to be a father figure for them.
Last year, the kiddos wanted to go trick-or-treating, but we had just buried my dad. This year, I’m glad to say I’m taking the kids out. I got their costumes, and I’m taking my dad’s final birthday present to my mom. We restored a ’95 Nissan pickup together. It was one of the final projects he painted.
I take that truck to car shows to display my dad’s talent. Man, I miss that guy.
If you’re on the fence about jumping on the wagon, take the leap. Others will thank you for doing it.
As for me, I wouldn’t have been able to step into my dad’s role in his business if I were still actively using.
Six years sober, and I’m still here. Still showing up. Still carrying on what my dad built.
And I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

My 6 year old son has almost daily #2 accidents. It started 6-8 months ago and I'm losing my freaking mind over it.

Yes I've taken him to a doctor, it's not encopresis. Yes he's in therapy. His therapist doesn't believe he's on the spectrum or any form of disabled.

It started with moderate to large accidents. I can't say there's been NO progress but it's a fucking snails pace. He just won't or can't listen to his body. It's always when he's distracted.

I set up bathroom breaks for him, make him go at certain times (when we get home, after meals, etc) but if I miss them the chance of an accident skyrockets. He might go 2-3 weeks of daily accidents if I don't remind him. Then he might go 3-4 days of no accidents. Then he will have 3-4 the next day.

Where before it was BIG accidents now it's like "slips" most of the time with an occasional bigger one. Again it's always during distractions: video games, TV, playing with others, fishing trips. Video games are cut out unless he goes an extended time with no accidents. TV gets cut out sometimes too with the same rules.

He used to not even notice it happened he'd just REEK. Now most of the time he notices and cleans himself/changes before we notice. Sometimes he secludes himself if it happens, but most of the time he notices now. So I guess that's improvement.

I really don't want to hurt his self esteem or make him feel guilty about it but I'm getting to the point where I want to drive my head through a wall every time it happens.

What the fuck guys. I don't know what's wrong with my boy. I'm going fucking insane here. I don't know what's wrong with my boy.

Edit: I also want to add we do positive reinforcement as well. He has a reward chart and if he goes take a dump without a grown up telling him to he gets a sticker. So many stickers get prizes.

Edit 2: only happens at home. No accidents at school or other places

My 3.5 year old draws these things daily at daycare and my truck floor is piling up with them. My wife gives my crap if she sees me toss them out like they’re some memory I’m tossing away. Am I the only one?

https://youtu.be/aOEYoglP7zI?is=zbMom_SEkAvsYglH

I took my 4 year old son to a pumpkin patch/theme park, and we had a fantastic time eating, playing, getting scared, everything you could want from such a place.

Well, he particularly loved these- I guess they're called Spun Chairs- and kept going back to play on them some more. One time, they were all in use, and we waited as these 2 women were playing around on one. One rolled off backwards, laughing, before standing and walking off with her friend.

My son ran up to her chair, grabbed something out of it, and took off. I saw that it was a phone in his hand, and before I could say anything, he reached the two women, handed it back to them, and turned to go back to the chairs.

I was stunned. He did this without hesitation, without needing instruction. I bought him ice cream and, for the rest of the night, couldn't stop telling him how proud of him I was. We watched the fireworks from those chairs.

What a powerful feeling.

For full context, I am divorced and re-married about 7 years ago. I have a good working relationship with my son's mom and we help each other when needed. Our child schedule might be a little different as I have the kids Friday afternoon to Monday morning, so I have the kids 3 nights and she has them 4. This works for our schedule and I have enjoyed it because I have them all weekend and are able to have lots of quality time them .

Anyway, I had a talk with my son this past weekend about chores as he really has been pushing back against doing any chores. The reason he gave me why he doesn't want to do any chores is because he doesn't feel like our house is his house.......when he thinks of home, he thinks of his mom's house. He looks at my/our house as someplace he goes to for the weekend. Hearing this made me sad as I've always worked on having a place that I thought he would love. When I bought the house , he helped choose the house that we bought.

I suppose the hardest part for him is that when I bought the house , it was 20 minutes away from his mom's and all of his friends live near her . He can't just walk out the door and walk over to the park with them.....he needs a ride . I understand that not having the freedom to hang out with his friends without a ride can be frustrating.

Just reeling a bit as I'm just learning he doesn't feel like he is at home when he is at our/his house.

​

I just finished a 3km jog around the compound. My son and his cousin joined me, although I don't think they had much energy left after playing football all morning with friends and cousins

Now I'm enjoying some fresh sugarcane, and the boys are learning how to eat it straight from the cane. Sugarcane farming is the main source of income for people in this area.

The boys are still playing football every day, and I'm enjoying being a dad to a little village gang. My son, his cousins and the friends he's made here are always together, running around and playing.

I'm also trying to teach them something important: the importance of staying in school. Unfortunately, most children in the village drop out because of poverty, limited opportunities, or simply losing sight of what education can do for them. I want these boys to understand that they can enjoy being kids while still taking their education seriously.

For now, it's football, sugarcane and village life. I've been running, staying active, enjoying the quiet, and taking a break from the usual pressures of life.

I got my daughter the illustrated edition of The Hobbit pictured above for Christmas and it's been an incredible success, we're currently halfway through our 3rd read through. Her birthday is coming up and I was wondering if you all had any suggestions on something similar, a grand adventure with decent/somewhat frequent illustrations? Also fwiw, I can't recommend that edition of The Hobbit enough it's really wonderful

Edit: I forgot to mention, she's turning 6

Made my son a Bo Staff with some scrap pex and electrical tape for his Donatello costume (Or “Ninja Turtle Donnie” if you ask him).

I’m setting the over/under for him assaulting somebody and getting it taken away at a generous 15 minutes. Who’s in?

***Update*** He made 10 minutes exactly before Grandma, a window, and my pregnant wife felt its wrath. Bets are now closed, we will try again on the 31st 😂

My son is a 5th grader and has his set of friends. He asked if some of his friends can sleepover and go bowling instead of t/t because it's going to rain anyway. I'm fine with it, but I can't tolerate how much some of three of these kids stink because they don't use deodorant. I have NO clue how their parents can be so clueless about this. I can be rather blunt because I care and I want my point to get across. I don't want my request to have your son wear deodorant be taken the wrong way when I would totally understand if the roles were reversed.

About 3 months ago, I posted this story about playing a narrative storytelling game with Roleplay elements with my 6yo daughter. I'm a veteran RPG and tabletop player and GM and wanted to share the fun of these games with her.

Fast forward to today: For the past 3 months my daughter and I have been doing this on the regular: at least once a week when I have the time and brain-space (usually on the weekends). She loves it and she's been coming up with her own storytelling ideas that we use when we play together. It's been a great way to spend Daddy/daughter time together.

Well, I came home from work today and my wife handed me her latest report card from her school (1st grade). Her reading comprehension is one of the highest in her grade, and she's been moved to the advanced reading group. This is because, according to her teacher, she has been coming up with fantastic stories and has been using what we've been doing as the basis: characters, setting, problem, and solution for a complete start-to-finish story. I couldn’t be prouder, and I just wanted to share!

I don’t know if this post needs any warnings but as the title suggests, it will include talk of alcohol and drug addiction.

My son is 8 years old. my brother (20) has lived with us since my son was born. We’ll call him L. L is unfortunately deep in both drug and alcohol addiction and has been for about 6 months. Me and my partner have tried multiple times to get him to accept treatment, but he has no interest in getting better and I can’t force him to do so.

Throughout the past few months, L has been in and out of the house. Staying with us for a few nights then leaving for days to weeks at a time. This cycle has been really rough on everyone in the house and his behavior has gotten to the point where I don’t want him around my son. So last week I asked him to not come home until he’s ready to get help. I don’t know if this was the right decision because I worry so much for his safety, but I need to protect my son from watching L destroy himself and his life.

I explained to my son, “L is sick right now and his sickness is making him do dangerous things. To keep you and everyone in the house safe, L needs to live somewhere else for now.”

Naturally, my son has lots of questions about this. How long will he be sick for? Where is he going? Is he coming back? Etc. and he is really missing L. He talks about him nonstop and it breaks my heart. I don’t have answers to any of his questions and I don’t want to give him more information than he’s ready to process.

I’ve watched multiple family members destroy their life with substance abuse and I can’t let my son grow up around the same thing I did. But he deserves to know what’s happening in a way he can understand and deal with. This situation is extremely hard on all of us and I want more than anything else for L to accept help and come home for his sake and our sake, but I can’t make that happen.

Any advice on how to answer my son’s questions or talk to him about the situation is much appreciated.

(Tagging this as Discussion because there's no humor flair)

Currently standing in my kitchen making ramen at 10pm because I was too busy making the kid's dinner to eat myself, haven't had time to go to the store to get groceries for the rest of the week and am not sure I can afford them without maxing out my credit card, and have 4 weeks of laundry sitting in my room waiting to be folded afterwards I finish eating.

How are your Tuesdays going?

Trigger warning for a traumatic birth experience. But in the end, things were okay.

I suppose true hubris for any new father is thinking you can predict the future. I had thought my wife would start contractions and they'd get stronger, we'd call, we'd see if we needed to go to the hospital. Then we'd get there, she'd be in labor, she'd push, we get our golden hour and all of our congratulations.

Holy fucking shit that is not what happened.

Here's the story. First child inbound. The night prior I get home from work around midnight. Wife feels fine. No contractions she says. 40 weeks on the dot. Okay, I guess I'll go to bed and go to work in the morning.

5 am I wake up to her on all fours howling saying we have to go. I get up, get our stuff together, throw it in the car and call ahead. Didn't even ask about the contractions - heard her screaming and said "do you want an ambulance escort?"

Hospital is close so I say no and hit the road. She's in the back seat. I'm thinking this baby is literally coming out in the car. We get to the hospital and as I'm trying to get the car valet, she walks in the front doors and falls to the floor. They rush her to emergency maternity. Almost fully dilated. The check up the day before had her at 2 cm. Baby is coming out and coming soon.

They give her an epidural which for months she insisted against but the pain was too much. Finally calms down and it's time to push. She's pushing, pushing, pushing. One of the doctors says the baby's heart rate is dropping. The other insists the monitor isn't on correctly. I start panicking but continue to help how I can. (Not much)

By 10 am they confirm her heart rate isn't stable and we gotta get this baby out. We decide to vacuum. Now I'm really panicking, legs are weak, shit is getting crazy.

Baby starts to come out and gets stuck. She isn't breathing. Thirty people, I shit you not, rush in. Nurse is pulling baby out and I'm about to pass out from all the commotion. 10:14 she's out, spits up meconium, and finally breathes. They take her from us and I still don't hear her crying. After only a second or so but what feels like eternity I hear her cry and I start sobbing with relief. It's over, she's born and we can have her.

They let us hold her and she's so beautiful. We got through it, my wife is a champion.

Just kidding. Off to the NICU! Might have an infection from the meconium. Awesome. White blood cell count is high. Sooooo cool!!!! They say it may be from stress, maybe infection. Have to rule it out. On antibiotics she goes. I am finally allowed to visit her in the NICU after an hour and they tell me we may not bring her home for FIVE DAYS.

At this point I'm a wreck. But I'll fast forward.

NICU stay only takes three days and she didn't have an infection, thank God. They do every test under the sun and she's perfectly healthy. We finally bring her home.

To top it all off, by the last day at the hospital I am sick as a dog and pounding DayQuil. So even the drive home wasn't the experience I had in mind and I have to wear a mask around my daughter the first night we ever have her home and can't kiss her.

But the thing is, it all worked out. It was so unbelievably scary. And this whole time my wife is fine. She works in a hospital and has experience with these things. I am just an idiot musician who has spent most of his life around psychotic people without ever having conventional jobs. I've no experience with hospital talk, or medical talk, or any of this. I'm just a dad doing my best.

Fast forward again to last night when I wake up from a quick nap at 2 am and baby is downstairs while my wife, generally not the most emotional person, is playing love songs to my daughter while she rests in the bassinet besides her.

I just went into the bathroom and silently cried. I have never been so relieved or felt so lucky in my entire life.

Yesterday I picked up my just turned 5 yr old from his after care, and literally picked him up off the ground to hug and kiss him and he said "I dont like kisses at school". So I said "Oh ok no problem, no kisses then" and set him back down as though nothing happened.

Mind you I do this on most days because he always has been a huggy/kissy type of kid and I enjoy the affection too. But something about the way he said this hit me slowly in waves. Because he added the "at school" at the end on purpose. So it dawned on me that the age of self-consciousness and self-image is already starting.

I guess I just didnt expect it to be this soon lol.

My 9 yo wanted to go as Hercules. So I made her a bow out of PVC (bent using a heat gun). Was a fun project. What else is being made out there?

Was helping my kids put their jack o lanterns on the porch. They've got the little tealights inside and my son's wasn't working, so I had to mess with it to get it lit back up. Told him it was loose. Then I thought, heh... it is, in fact, luz.

Hey guys (English isn't my first language so I don't know the most precisely words) but I would like to know your experience if you have stayed at home caring for the kids while your wife brings the money. I would like to do this with my girlfriend, we're pretending to have kids. But she doesn't want to be a house wife. I wouldn't care not working, I really want to be father and maybe working from home. So, if you had this experience tell me here.

My wife and I had very different teenage experiences after we got our driver's license. I am not sure where to find a balance.

I had to pay for my own gas and insurance and my parents offered to loan me money for a vehicle at no interest. Due to that, I managed mostly with a bike or gave gas money to friends when they drove. She was given a car and had all related expenses paid from her parents in full. My oldest son just got his license. My wife wants to do it like she had it and I think we should do it like I had it. For some more context, my son has so concept of work or money. He barely even does any chores, I want him to get a job that does 2 shifts a week and bike to it like I did at 16. It's tough out there, I want to help him but also want to prepare him for reality.

What do you all do? What do you suggest or think works or doesn't work?

My 5 year old and 3 year old, really love dogs. Many people around us have one, so they are always excited to pet and play with one. Getting her own family dog is the #1 request from my oldest to Santa, to the wishing well, to the universe. My wife and I usually gently brush off the topic. But lately my wife is also warming up to the idea of getting a dog and all the good things that come with it. She is now giving it a serious thought. Financially or space wise, we should be reasonably fine as well.

That said, I am absolutely not for getting a dog. Neither my wife or I had pets growing up, so we have zero experience. I am only a couple of years away from 40 and can only see new responsibilities and vet bills instead of unconditional love from a new adorable family member. I feel like I missed my window (before kids) of getting one and now won't have the energy to train and keep up with the dog.

Fellow dads, anyone think getting a pet this far out is a good idea? More importantly has anyone been in a similar boat, wherebthey became first time pet parents after having kids and it worked out for you?

Called the pediatrician and he suggested to watch the poop for 3 days. I'm so worried though! Any other dads with similar experience? Kinda freaking out..

Hey dads, I'd love to solicit some support. My wife has been dealing with a cluster of health problems that got bad about 3 years ago, though they started well before that. We've recently come to understand it probably isn't going away, and started to recognize it as chronic illness, and not just a series of unexplained episodes. We have a couple of partial diagnoses, but a lot of unexplained symptoms remain. It looks partly autoimmune but includes joint pain, GI, and endocrine issues, and it often flattens her with fatigue. She also has ADHD. Our kids are 5 and 7, and she's a stay-at-home mom. I'm very fortunate to be able to WFH in a stable role.

The hardest part is the unpredictability. Much of the time she manages to do the things she enjoys and we split responsibilities pretty equitably. Then symptoms hit, sometimes as full-blown flares, rarely with any rhyme or reason. She can be fine for weeks or months, then laid out for days, or just powering through the pain for weeks at a time.

That means we'll plan an activity, she crashes, and I'm on the hook with the kids when maybe I wasn't prepared to manage it all solo. She'll say she'll handle something and then isn't able to follow through. She means well, but she isn't realistic about her limits, so we can't fully count on her plans, and I end up quietly building a backup for everything.

I work hard to cover as much of the family routines and chores as I can, and when a flare hits, I step in to manage everything I can, really entering survival mode and carrying out mechanical routines. Our kids aren't the hardest, but our youngest pushes boundaries constantly and needs a lot of active management, which just adds to the energy cost of life. We have almost no backup: her parents are gone and mine aren't particularly helpful.

My intention isn't to complain. I know she's the one suffering and I really do my best to support her in every way I'm able. But I'm worn down, and a few things make it harder:

• My time off isn't really off. She's supportive of me taking a break, say on a Sunday when we don't have plans, but I'm always braced for the bottom to drop out, so I never fully switch off.

• She needs a partner, and I'm tapped out. Especially when she's feeling vulnerable, she wants me present and supportive, and by the time I've dealt with the active crises and routine upkeep, there's little left for her.

• I can't show I'm struggling. She reacts badly to any hint that I'm unhappy or burdened. I assume it's guilt and fear, but it leaves me with nowhere to put it.

• She's very sensitive to perceived criticism. Even a small ask, like a dishes-related request, can blow up, and when she's flooded by her limitations she can get controlling. I get that she's frustrated by her lack of control and agency, but it means I end up quietly absorbing a lot that I don't feel I can share back.

A small example from this week: I used to love elaborate Halloween costumes and decorations, and I just can't find the energy for it anymore. It still matters a lot to my wife, and she's pouring herself into making custom decorations, potentially to the point of burning out and making her symptoms worse. I admire that she cares about making things beautiful, and I'm glad she's spent the time. But I'm over here doing routine chores and chipping away at a backlog of deferred maintenance, and I miss being the person who was excited to put together something goofy for the holidays.

We're in couples counseling, which helps. I'm reading The Invisible Kingdom, a great book about chronic illness. I'd love to find resources aimed at spouses and partners, since most of what I find is for the patient.

What I'd love to hear from other dads in this situation:

1. How do you actually recharge, not just "take time," when you're always on call mentally?

2. How do you plan family life when your partner's capacity is unpredictable and her plans don't always hold?

3. How do you stay emotionally available to a partner who needs you when you're already depleted?

4. How do you make requests or set boundaries with a partner who's sensitive to perceived criticism, without adding to her guilt?

5. Any books, communities, or groups for spouses of chronically ill partners?

I know a lot of you have lived some version of this, and I'd appreciate hearing any wisdom you have. Thanks for reading, I know this one is long.

Red Delicious apples are the three truths and a lie of the fruit world.